Harvard University was sued by Jewish students who claim the school has failed to punish campus antisemitism that soared after the Hamas attack on Israel and helped lead to the ouster of President Claudine Gay.
Harvard administrators failed to enforce policies that should protect Jewish students from antisemitic speech and conduct, according to the lawsuit filed late Wednesday in Boston federal court. Students cited a US civil rights law that’s been used to sue New York University, the University of Pennsylvania and University of California, Berkeley.
The lawsuit comes amid turmoil at Harvard, America’s oldest and richest university, where Gay resigned last week after she initially failed to condemn the Hamas attack, mishandled her December 5 testimony in Congress about antisemitism and faced allegations of plagiarism. Hamas is designated a terrorist organization by the US and the EU.
“It is clear that Harvard will not correct its deep-seated antisemitism problem voluntarily,” Marc E. Kasowitz, whose firm filed the lawsuit, said in a statement. “Jewish students at Harvard are being subjected to vile and threatening antisemitic harassment and calls for the murder of Jews.”
A Harvard spokesman declined to comment, saying the school doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
The university has worked to address the antisemitism issue, introducing additional training for students, faculty and staff as well as promoting an anonymous hotline for reporting incidents of bias. The school’s Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion also convened community support sessions in collaboration with a campus Jewish group and counseling and mental health services.
Alexander Kestenbaum, a Harvard Divinity School student, sued under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination based on race, color or national origin. They also claimed breach of contract based on various Harvard policies, including codes on student conduct.
“Harvard, America’s leading university, has become a bastion of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and harassment,” according to the complaint. “What is most striking about all of this is Harvard’s abject failure and refusal to lift a finger to stop and deter this outrageous antisemitic conduct and penalize the students and faculty who perpetrate it.”
In addition to Kestenbaum, the suit was also filed by the Students Against Antisemitism Inc., a not-for-profit group that includes unidentified Harvard law students and a graduate student in public health. Kestenbaum is also a member of the organization.
The complaint asks a judge to order Harvard to terminate faculty and administrators who engage in antisemitic discrimination and discipline students engaged in such conduct. It also seeks to force Harvard to decline or return donations “conditioned on the hiring or promotion of professors who espouse antisemitism.” The complaint also seeks financial damages.
Harvard was thrust into the spotlight when more than 30 student groups signed a petition blaming the October 7 attack solely on Israel. Gay was heavily criticized by alumni and students for her slow response and allowing protests that Jewish students found harassing and intimidating. Classes were also disrupted by protesters.
The tumult has tarnished Harvard’s reputation and led to a revolt among its wealthy donors and deepened rifts between faculty, students and administrators. Harvard Corp., the institution’s top governing authority, is poised to undertake a search for her successor.
Against that backdrop, the university is at the center of broader national debates over academic freedom, free speech, diversity and governance, issues that have divided the campus for years.
Harvard also faces various federal investigations, including a Title VI probe by the Education Department for discrimination regarding antisemitism or Islamophobia.
Separately, Congress launched two investigations following a Dec. 5 hearing on Capitol Hill about antisemitism, where the presidents of Harvard, Penn and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gave widely derided testimony. They failed to say that calling for genocide against Jews is a violation of university policies, leading to the resignation of Gay and Liz Magill, Penn’s president.
On Tuesday, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce asked Harvard Corp. Chair Penny Pritzker and interim President Alan Garber for a trove of information, including all documents and communications involving antisemitism on campus since early 2021.
Gay, the school’s first Black leader, resigned January 2 after just six months in the role.
